Help!

[Pugwinkle]

We had a bit of a disaster here a few minutes ago. Thank heavens we were at home and were able to nip it in the bud.

We have a 65 gallon tank with an Aquaclear 300 filter which is only about 5 months old. We have two sponges in the filter.

Here is what happened. We heard the tank making a lot of noise and went to over to the tank to find that the carpet and floor below the tank were saturated with water. I looked quickly at the filter and the sponges and the sponge holder were sticking up right out of the filter causing the water to fall down behind the filter onto the floor.

What in the world would have caused this to happen?????

We had been planning to do a water change today because the water level was down by about 5 gallons from the top. Do you think the water level being down could have had any bearing on what happened??

We are very worried that this might happen again when we are not at home and would like to know how to ensure it does not ever happen again.

Thanks in advance for any help you can give me.

 

[Gyration]

My tetra did that, I have never used a aquaclear before so I am not sure. I know that for the tetra it overflowed because the pads were too dirty and water couldn't get through so there was only one way for the water to go, up and out of the filter into the floor. So i am sticking to marineland filters like penguim and emperors. For HOB filters of course, canister filters is a completely different story.

 

[Pugwinkle]

Yes, I think that is exactly what caused the problem. The sponges were too dirty and the water couldn't get through. But wouldn't the same thing happen with the Penguins or Emperors?

 

[grimlock3000]

"But wouldn't the same thing happen with the Penguins or Emperors?"

No because in the Aquaclears, the water gets pushed UP through the filter media. If the media gets clogged, it can get push out of the filter. Typically if this happens, it just goes up half and inch or so and knocks the lid up.

In Penguins and Emps, the water sits in a pool and passes sideways through the filter material so this can not happen.

 

[aquakev]

I dont think this was caused by the water being too low, I use an aquaclear 300 with 2 sponges and some bio rings in an archer fish tank that is about 3-5 inches below the top of the aquarium(or about 5 gallons less than full). Mabey it was the dirt but they are not that powerfull of filters and some times my media just gets pushed aside.

 

[Gyration]

No with the penguins and emperor, if the sponge is too dirty, the water still has room at he top (good design) to pass through. So the water just doesn't get filtered, but it does not over flow out of the filter.

 

[Cafe Jeff]

The question is: where the Sponges that dirty?

Jeff

 

[Pugwinkle]

Well the sponges were pretty dirty but I have cleaned them well now. The holder of the sponges still works it's way up and out of the filter for some unknown reason.